Apple Slims iPad With Power-Efficient 64-Bit A7

SAN FRANCISCO -- Amid the usual cacophony of news media noise, speculation, and up-to-the-nanosecond tweeting, Apple announced at an event today that its latest slimmed-down iPads will have a Retina screen and the company's A7 64-bit processor. It also said its new Mavericks operating system will be free, along with iWorks and iLife software products.

The new iPad Air has a 9.7-inch Retina screen and earns its name by shedding 28 percent of its predecessor's weight and 20 percent of its thickness, Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said at the event. The company said in its product announcement that the device weighs one pound and has a smaller battery thanks to the A7's power efficiency. It also said the iPad Air offers up to 10 hours in battery life and performs 2x faster than the previous generation.

Apple's iPad Air.(Source: Apple.com)

Apple's M7 motion coprocessor is on board, too, and is adding to the power efficiency. The company said the motion coprocessor "gathers data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass to offload work from the A7 for improved power efficiency."

The iPad Mini has a Retina screen with the same 2,048-by-1,536 resolution as the iPad Air in a slightly smaller space: a 7.9-inch Multi-Touch display. Both the iPad Air and the Mini have two antennas and "for the first time have MIMO," Schiller said. Both also have a HD camera that plays at 1,080p, along with an iSight camera with 5MP sensor and advanced optics, and they support OpenGL ES version 3.0.

A side-view diagram of the iPad Air.(Source: Apple.com)

"Image signal processing of A7, further improves still image and video capture on iPad bringing faster auto-focus, up to three times video zoom, five times still zoom, better dynamic range and automatic image and video stabilization," the company said in its press release.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the event that the company sold its 170 millionth iPad in October. "Now everyone seems to be making a tablet, even the doubters."

Outside Apple's product announcement event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.(Source: EE Times)

The company also announced new flavors of its MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, with Retina screens, longer battery life, and (depending on the model) quad- or dual-core Intel Core i5/i7 processors and Intel Iris Pro for graphics.

In his keynote, Cook poked some fun at his competitors, saying they are confused and trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs. "We still believe deeply in this category." By "this," he must have meant both categories: PCs and tablets.

Beyond improved battery life, green design and US jobs were themes at the event. Without Steve Jobs, Apple may be becoming aware of its green and social image. Throughout the presentation, the company displayed each hardware product's green cred and pointed out those designed and assembled in America.

I found a number of people using iPads for taking photos while I was on vacation in Italy this summer. I used mine a few times, but mostly I used my Lumix camera with 12x optical zoom. Far superior pcitures.

though the two may match up on paper, anyone who has used the two for any extended amount of time will tell you they are very different beasts. The apple experience is much more polished, and the app store is a behemoth.

Good grief, Intel and AMD have been 64bit for ten years now. The sad fact, in the comsumer market, 90% of the apps don't need it and vendors being forced to supply 32 and 64bit versions is unnecessary overhead. The only comsumer app that may benefit from 64bit are video and how well does that work without +4gb of ram?